The Only Possible Evidence for a Demonstration of God's Existence

Download or read book The Only Possible Evidence for a Demonstration of God's Existence written by Immanuel Kant and published by Newcomb Livraria Press. This book was released on with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new 2024 translation of "The Only Possible Evidence for a Demonstration of God's Existence" from the original German manuscript first published in 1763. The original German title is "Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes". This new edition contains an afterword by the translator, a timeline of Kant's life and works, and a helpful index of Kant's key concepts and intellectual rivals. This translation is designed for readability, rendering Kant's enigmatic German into the simplest equivalent possible, and removing the academic footnotes to make this critically important historical text as accessible as possible to the modern reader. In the first part of the document, Kant embarks on a meticulous examination of metaphysical necessity, a concept central to the arguments for the existence of a Supreme Being. Here the distinction between what is absolutely necessary and what is contingent is explored in depth. This exploration is crucial because it lays the groundwork for arguing for the existence of a being whose existence is seen as necessary rather than contingent. The second part examines the specific attributes traditionally ascribed to a divine being, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection. Kant critically analyses these attributes, discussing their coherence and the implications they have for the concept of a supreme being. This analysis is crucial to understanding the nature of the being whose existence the treatise seeks to demonstrate. In the third section, the treatise examines the logical structure that underlies the argument for God's existence. This involves a dissection of ontological and cosmological arguments, assessing their validity and soundness within the realm of philosophical reasoning.